Blizzard, Square/Enix Ban Yet More Farmers 318
Eurogamer has the news that both Blizzard and Square/Enix have banned another batch of players for farming. The number of accounts, and the amount of money removed from the economy, is astonishing. From the article: "According to the World of Warcraft website, some 30,000 accounts were banned last month - and, as a result, more than 30 million gold were removed from the economy across all realms ... Based on the results of this investigation, more than 250 [FFXI] accounts among those found to be involved in large-scale RMT operations have been terminated... Thanks to these measures, more than 250 billion gil has been removed from circulation."
World of Final Fantasy?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway...
I have to love the subtle order of magnitude in accounts banned. WoW bans 30,000 accounts out of 6 million, or about 0.5% of total accounts. Assuming Square-Enix banned the same percentage, they have a total of 50,000 accounts.
Now, I know that Square-Enix's MMORPG isn't quite as popular as World of Warcarft, but I'm going to guess that's more of an indication that Blizzard is being more proactive in their banning of cheaters than Square-Enix is.
The damage has been done (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no fast fix at this point, but closing accounts is a good start. I hope they keep up the good work, and hope even more to stop seeing ads to buy gold and gil.
Helping the economy by removing illicit capital (Score:4, Insightful)
In short, prices drop, and the "poverty line" is lowered drastically.
That explains all those unguilded rogues! (Score:3, Insightful)
This type of action is largely pointless. They've slowed down the farmers for a little while, but they just level new accounts and go back to it. Meanwhile Blizzard is making more things that require Arcanite, which is probably the single most farmed resource on the entire server. That will just drive prices up and increase the pool of people who say "screw it" and go buy gold from some farming operation, spawning more farmers.
If they actually want to do something about this, they need to reduce the need to buy gold to get anything done in a reasonable timeframe, and/or start banning people who BUY gold. They're the problem anyway.
Re:The damage has been done (Score:2, Insightful)
Ebay economy is life or death for your game (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The damage has been done (Score:2, Insightful)
Posturing (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't understand... (Score:1, Insightful)
MMORPG should just sell the gold directly to the players and set up in game to real world money exchanges and let the players decide if they want to play the game that way. They could set up realms where it is not allowed or is limited. If someone wants to spend all day farming items and selling them to rich Americans, then all the power to him. I would rather send the guy a couple of hundred dollars than piss away a 100 hours of play time building up a character.
Re:Math tells all (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Blizzard's real motive here however, is clear.
30k accounts x 30 dollars per CD key (I thought it was more, but I'll use your numbers) = 900,000 dollars increased revenue in Blizzard's pocket. Not to mention any additional time purchased on said accounts that was taken (IE, if they were paid 6 months in advance, that's up to 80 additional dollars per account). Why do they make extra money on this? Because the farmers will be back. As long as there is a demand, and the design of nearly any MMO creates the demand, certainly WOW does.
Now think about it - if you could do something that would provide a great PR booster, and make nearly a million dollars doing it, why not?
Re:The damage has been done (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem comes in when these casual players somehow think they need/deserve the top tier epic equipment. Yes this stuff costs a shitload of gold, because it's designed for people who put a shitload of time into the game. This stuff is really only required for the most challenging instances though (which are far beyond what a casual player would ever do).
I also find it very amusing how gold buyers are so quick to claim that people who don't buy gold don't have real lives. You are spending real money on make believe money (when you certainly don't need it to play and have fun), yet you have the audacity to insult the social habits of those who don't do this. Judge not lest ye be judged, ya friggin hypocrite.
Re:RMT? (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmer_(gaming) [wikipedia.org]
Re:That explains all those unguilded rogues! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The damage has been done (Score:5, Insightful)
Want to go do a raid (why you'd want to do this I don't know, but some people obviopusly like it)- if you don't have top level eq, you either won't be allowed on harder raids or you'll end up being a leech.
WoW is a gear based game. If you want to play, you need top end gear. End of story. If you have a life, that means buying it. THis is a flaw in the game, and the gold sellers help to mitigate it. I salute them for it, and Blizzard ought to be damn thankful they exist- they got an extra hundred or so off of me when I would have quit without them. And I'm far from the only one, I know another 2 dozen or so like me.
Re:You want to stop gold farming? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, it's exactly like that. The difference is that it will work here. WOW is the perfect police state: total surveillance and no legal system, other than the unaccountable ultimate power of the game masters. There are logs recording every trade and every AH transaction. There is no way that "users" can buy gold without their action being recorded. The real world isn't like that, because you can buy things anonymously using cash, and you don't have to do business within sight of the police.
Re:That explains all those unguilded rogues! (Score:4, Insightful)
Time sinks are here, and they're here to stay.
Re:The damage has been done (Score:3, Insightful)
What I've learned from your posts is that you don't like questing, grinding, or raiding. You like PvP, and you think you should be able to single out just that portion of the game, and be competative at the top levels without playing the rest of the game. I can only think that this means your time would be better served playing some other game.
Re:Don't understand... (Score:3, Insightful)
"The last thing I want to do after working all day doing borning work is to come home and end up playing a borning game where I have to spend a 100+ hours to get a half way decent character that can do somewhat fun quests."
I think the part that you don't understand is that there are "somewhat fun quests" available right from the start, and more become available as you progress through the game. It's not fifty levels of beating up rats followed by a sudden transition to some mystical, enjoyable "end-game", no matter what the whiny kids on the forums say.
Re:The damage has been done (Score:3, Insightful)
Damn. People don't even RTFGP anymore. A DIRECT quote from the GP: I buy gold and I'm damn proud of it-
Doesn't leave much to assume does it?
Second, if you can work as many hours as you want, or at least you can work extra hours, and you get more gold for working an hour and buying it than you do for farming for an hour, then why shouldn't you buy gold if that works for you? I mean aside from it being against the TOS.
1. Very few people can work as much as they want and get paid on a linear scale. Personally I'm salaried so working extra nets no extra money for me.
2. You don't need to go farming for an hour. It's a game. It's supposed to be fun. You'll get enough gold to enjoy yourself just by playing through the game as usual. So if the question is: would I rather spend an hour at work getting a lot of play money or would I rather spend an hour playing a game I enjoy getting a little less play money, I'd certainly take the game.
Re:The damage has been done (Score:5, Insightful)
Your absolutely right- I bought gold to make WoW a game thats more appealing to me. I also remodeled my kitchen to make it more appealing to me- is that cheating? And yes, I should be able to play the parts of the game that I want and not play the parts of the game I don't- its a game. Why the fuck should I pay to do something I don't like? Hell, for that matter name any game where you like every aspect of it- I can't. I eventually quit WoW when Blizzard made it impossible to do the parts of the game I did like without doing the parts I don't (I wasn't about to spend 5 hours a week doing MC, which was what it took a good guild then. I like having weekends). SO did the rest of my guild, minus one or two players, so there went a few grand a year for Blizzard. But if there's enough parts of the game I do like, I'm going to go ahead and play it and use whatever means are possible to skip the not fun parts. SO long as doing the fun parts is worth the money, its all good. In this case it was- I spent a few hundred on gold, and enjoyed the game for a decent amount of time. It was a lot cheaper on a per time basis than many other hobbies.
Re:The damage has been done (Score:3, Insightful)
MC or BWL gear isn't bought. It's dropped. If you want to go get it, you do those runs, you don't buy the stuff. In the same light, if you want to do strictly PvP, there are rewards for doing PvP as well.
Want to go do a raid (why you'd want to do this I don't know, but some people obviopusly like it)- if you don't have top level eq, you either won't be allowed on harder raids or you'll end up being a leech.
If you enjoy raiding, then you will have done a lot of dungeons by the time you make it up there. Through the standard progressive sequence, if you raid the proper dugneons sequentially, you will get acceptable gear simply from drops or quests. There is simply no need to buy the stuff.
WoW is a gear based game. If you want to play, you need top end gear. End of story. If you have a life, that means buying it. THis is a flaw in the game, and the gold sellers help to mitigate it. I salute them for it, and Blizzard ought to be damn thankful they exist- they got an extra hundred or so off of me when I would have quit without them. And I'm far from the only one, I know another 2 dozen or so like me.
Gear certainly helps in certain areas, but you in no way need top end gear. I've been through high-level 5 man runs when every player has done fine, and afterwards seen players with all green gear (typical cheapo dropped or quested for stuff) that pulled their weight as much as anyone else. Top level gear simply is not required to enjoy the game. The best stuff isn't even buyable anyways, and even the decent BoE stuff needn't always be paid for (the 3 BoE portions of my Magister's set were all donated out of the guild bank, having dropped on guild runs previously with noone able to use them). The only flawed part of the equation is your perception of the situation. Continue with your superiority complex though. It's really amusing.
Re:Subsidizing farmers is for national defense (Score:1, Insightful)
wow check out the ratios (Score:2, Insightful)
30,000 accounts on wow, removed 30 million gold, thats an average of about 1000 gold per account
on FF its 250 accounts and 250 billion gil?
thats an average of about 1billion gil per account?
holy crap
Re:Federal Reserve (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes because what we really need is only the rich being able to readily access liquid assets.
Re:The damage has been done (Score:5, Insightful)
All I'm saying is that if you don't like the way WoW playes, cheating isn't the way to fix it. It's like filling the sandbox with dirt because you like making mud-forts more than sandcastles, it's really best for everyone involved if you just go play in the mud and leave the sandbox alone.
Re:The damage has been done (Score:3, Insightful)
Tetris.
Re:Farming shows a much bigger problem (Score:5, Insightful)
A) Spend a combination of 40 hours playing a game killing creatures to buy a sword so you can continue following the game's story line, quests, and continue playing with others
B) Pay some dude $20 and buy the sword so you can continue following the game's story line, quests, and continue playing with others.
I think the worst example of poor game design was FFXI. In it you had crafting skills which required pieces from all over the world. You could literally spend an entire weekend aquiring the materials and spend 2 hours watching the materials critically fail and now you are out the items you spent 40 hours worth of WORK in addition to into and haven't gained much progression for your character. MMO's are all about playing with other people and advancing, yet developers purposefully create time boring sinks which cause people to rely on farmers in order to get back to the fun parts of the game.
In my opinion if an MMO came out that modeled Diablo or FF in the sense that would allow soloability (the option of playing with others is better than having to play with others - see WoW's user base) as well as by the time you reached max level you're character could easily afford anything he wanted or needed without having to "farm" you'd have a solid game and one that could potential be the end all be all of MMO's.
But unfortunately no one wants to make one. All the companies hire designers who enjoy forcing people to play variable classes in certain ways, farm for greater amounts of time than playing with others, and insist on making MMO's more tedious and annoying. Why? Because the longer it takes you to achieve your goals, the longer you have to pay them a monthly fee.
Re:Farming shows a much bigger problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Playing the game long enough to gather enough gold to buy that item you want takes time. Sometimes lots of time, and sometimes spending it farming mindlessly for hours. This time you're investing into the game is real time (obviously). One could think then that buying gold from a farmer is essentially trading real-life money for time. Time that you would've spent killing mobs for hours on end. While I don't buy gold, and don't approve of it, when I think of it this way I can understand those who do.
Re:Farming shows a much bigger problem (Score:3, Insightful)
During my time in EQ, I bought plat so that I could buy things for friends who were starting the game. Eventually, I started farming my own money (legitimately, from buying and selling goods). I generated hundreds of thousands of plat, all of which I gave away in the end.
Too many people try to figure out what's "wrong". There's nothing wrong, it's just that time has a value, and people are willing to pay for it.
Re:Subsidizing farmers is for national defense (Score:5, Insightful)
If the United States were to decide to grow enough food for all the hungry in the entire world (and we could for at least staple foods, we've got plenty of empty farms due to subsidies, etc), then all of the food (not far) beyond what we already distribute would rot in a warehouse waiting to dispursed. It's a sad state of affairs yes, and it's unfortunate that fixing the problems isn't a higher priority for the government or the people, but that's just the way it is.
Also, it takes more than just water and sunshine to make a plant, and with every bit of produce sold off a little bit more of the needed nutrients go with it. By not growing food on a plot of land every year it allows the soil to be revitalized every few years, allowing more food to be grown in the long term.
Re:Subsidizing farmers is for national defense (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You want to stop gold farming? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't understand... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you find a game boring, don't play it. Instead of throwing away your money to get to the fun part, play a game that you find entertaining. Isn't that the point of it being a game, to be fun?
Ummm, wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Gear helps, but only so much. It really comes down to tactics more than anything. Besides, the best gear in the game is only dropped, not bought. The tier 1 and 2 sets are all high-end raid gear. Even though there are a couple BoE peices, you never see them for sale. The farmers can't farm them. Why? Well you need 40 good people, of diverse classes, working together, and you can only hit each dungeon once a week.
You show me some guy who's bought the best stuff he can with purchased gold, I'll introduce to someone wearing all blues (not me necessiarly) who will kick his ass. The more people you get together, the more true that is. Give me 5 good, trained PvPers against 5 guys who bought a service to level them to 60 and bought their gear, I bet we don't lose a man.
The idea is that the high end gear is to give those people that want to play insane amounts something to work for. It does confer an advantage, at a large cost of time. However unless you've got a real inferority complex, you don't need that. You can play casual and still have fun. Will you get your ass kicked sometimes? Sure, but we all do. No matter how good you are, you find someone better. There's no ultimate trump.
I remember a quite amusing time when 3 epic'd out alliance had killed and were camping our guild master. They were taunting, acting tough, etc. What did he do? Called in his troops of course. Like 10 of us ran in there and just waxed them, and waxed their friends that came to help. They couldn't muster a force to do anything to us, and basically just sat and skulked until we got bored. However that's not because we were ultimate, later that night an alliance guild mopped the floor with us in BGs, a guild that we had beaten in the past.
What it sounds like to me is that you just want to pay money to be better than anyone. You feel that you should be able to buy your way into being powerful. I fail to see the point. Winning in PvP is fun, but hard fights are more fun. If I want to win all the time I can fire up a single player game and just engage all the cheats. For that matter I don't need to do that, I'm better than the AIs. The point of playing against other people is that they can be better than me, much better than me. The can provide a challenge.
If you dont' like the rules, don't play the game.
Re:The damage has been done (Score:2, Insightful)
How do you define decent? I've played with Tanks wearing the "pretty decent" gear you speak of -- and they are not exactly the best, great skills notwithstanding.
Even in the regular instances, the non-endgame places -- You want to tank scholo? You need a decent weapon. A weapon you got from a quest won't do it.
Crafted? Okay. Try the Annihilator. The mats for most GOOD crafted items are INSANE. Check out the mats for the Annihilator... it's a rare, not even an epic, bear that in mind.
40 Thorium bars, 12 Arcanite Bars, 10 Essence of Undeath, 8 Huge Emeralds, 4 Enchanted Leather, and 2 Dense Grinding Stones.
You said something about "pretty cheap crafted items" -- does that look cheap to you?
Similar mats for all decent high level crafted weapons and armor.
Rare plate of good quality -- 700g a piece. And if you want an epic crafted item? Titanic leggings perhaps? Lionheart Helm? You are in the THOUSANDS.
No, sorry, crafted items are not cheap. Not not not not... not at the higher levels, not for 60s, and a CASUAL level sixty player... how do you propose that they come up with the mats for the modest Annihilator? It's just a basic rare tank weapon. Insanely expensive..
Or do Casual Players not need anything above greens? I disagree, I think that you need to have at least good blues; sure if you're a sixty who tanks folks through Gnomer or the mines or similar instances, green to your hearts content (better to even have a swap out set of less expensive gear for when you aren't doing heavy duty stuff)... but most casual players WANT to do the instances.
And since WoW puts SO MUCH of their effort into the Endgame instances, missing out on those is missing out on the "amazing" stuff.. on the exciting, visually stunning gameplay. But YOU CAN'T GO if you don't have decent gear -- an endgame guild won't take you.
So, casual players should stay in green, not do instances, and never do endgame?
No, I think not.
Nor do I endorse in any way cheating.
But your point of view, while ranked insightful, is a touch simplistic, I'm afraid to say..
I dearly wish it weren't, though. I do. I wish we didn't have to spend hours mining and skinning and collecting herbs and so forth for a chance to get enough money to get that extra Fire Resist that would allow one to go to MC and BWL. And so forth.
Or even for a half way decent crafted weapon to tank regular instances.
What I've said here pertains to warrior class; Druids have it easier once they find a decent staff or get that Hammer of the Grand Crusader... all magical classes do. But dps and tanks rely on gear, and that is what there is, quest reward quality stuff just won't do unless you are talking about the rare quests that do give something good, such as the Tirion Fordring quest chain.
I wish that it was as easy as you suggest it is, I truly do.